Fog

I don't understand the fog trigger.

Whats z-start and z-end?

What do the different "types" of fog mean?

i don't know either. easiest way is just make a dummy 64x64 map and test it out.

p.s. if you do test it'd be great if you posted what you found out.

that refers to when hieght wise the fog starts. That is the kind of fog that makes your view black if you zoom out too far. Im not sure about the types, but since I use a zoomed out view for my map I use that trigger to remove the fog so its 6000-8000

I was wondering that as well.... You helped me out kinda hunter. thnx

It's not height, it's distance from the camera.

"z-based" refers to the screen coordinate system where x is left-right on the plane of the screen, y is up-down on that plane, and z is in-out.

So a z-based fog with z-start 100 and z-end 200 fogs no polygons until a distance of 100 "in" from the camera, then ramps the fog to full opacity at a distance of 200 "in" from the camera.

no, its not, it is hieght.

Try amking a camera and setting the z axis, now how can you make a camera move closer and farther away from itself. You can't. z is the plain height of it, if you set the fog to 500-8000 and you have a 1000 camera(I think that is the z of the defauly camera) you wont see crap. If you set the fog to 8000-9000 with a camera of 8100, you still wont see much. If what you are saying was true you would never be able to see the map, EVER, as the fog is always there unless you remove it.

The answer: You're both right!

What we have here are two different definitions of Z. When defining the positions of objects in the map, X is how far something is from the center of the map east-west, Y is how far it is from the center north-south, and Z is the height. This is why camera objects move up and down when you change the Z value.

When we talk about the fog, though, a completely different system is used. In this case X and Y are horizontally and vertically across your screen. (Like you set the X and Y screen resolution to set how many pixels there are.) Z is, as Ligature said, the depth "into" the screen or the distance of something from the camera. This makes sense as the purpose of fog is to hide where things disappear. You can set the Far Clipping of a camera and this determines at what distance objects disappear. This is a Z measurement. You can move your clipping in-editor by holding down CTRL and scrolling your mouse wheel.

Without fog, the world just "stops" at a certain distance. (this is why the world seems to disappear suddenly when you scroll out far or why it just seems to "end" at the top of the screen when you zoom out) Fog makes this transition smoother by slowly blending in "fog" in the distance, making things darker and darker the further they get from the camera. To try this out, just lower your camera to ground level on a small, blank map and turn on "Fog Effects" under View. Then go to Map Options and turn on "Terrain Fog". The Z Start is the distance at which the fog begins to appear, and it will get more and more "dense" (making things darker and darker) the further it gets away from the camera until it gets to Z End, at which point it will be the color specified and completely opaque. Ideally, Z End should be just barely closer than the Far Clipping distance so that the world "fades out" completely into the distance and there is no point where it just vanishes suddenly. Try out settings like 300 (WAY too close, liable to make things all but disappear from view) and 10000 (too far away) to check this all out.

The other options do not seem to be fully functional, or at least I do not understand their use yet. Besides, explaining Style would require a long mathematical explanation that I doubt is really necessary since for me any setting but Linear makes the fog solid completely. Density would seem to suggest that it controls the final transparency level of the fog at Z End, but it never seems to affect anything for me.